My hope is that this series will offer my readers a chance to consider the names, characteristics and descriptions of our God in the Word.
The remaining Names of God in this series might be considered descriptors, or characteristics of the Lord. We have reviewed the three primary Names of God, along with nineteen compound Names of God in our previous posts. As we venture through these descriptors of our God, I hope we will recognize all the many characteristics of our God that we tend to take for granted.
The Word is truly rich with descriptions of the Living God, and this effort of searching in the Word was quite illuminating. He truly is the ultimate subject of the Word, and His revelation of self-descriptions, or the accolades offered Him by His priests, prophets, kings apostles and faithful truly is a blessing.
May the Name of the Lord be praised, and by thinking on His name, may you have a blessed day.
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| EXACT IMPRINT |
| Hebrews 1:3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, |
| This is somewhat of a daunting name for myself as I have always associated this name with an imprint, or a stamp. Not sure where I got that idea, and I am not trying to assign error with this understanding. It is just that it doesn’t seem to connect with me. Maybe I am being too literal – Remember I tend to be too literal at times – but to associate Jesus as the imprint of God’s nature doesn’t tell me anything very specific. And I tend to associate it with a physical form that creates an imprint or stamp, and we all know that is not the message Hebrews is trying to communicate. So I am left with a bit of a dilemma. How shall I try to write on something I don’t get? Of course – some may say that hasn’t stopped me before with most of my previous posts. That may be true! Nevertheless, when all else fails, I started to study the phrase and looked initially at Strong’s dictionary. What a wonderful tool for the layman to take advantage of. What I found was that the phrase “exact imprint” in the Greek New Testament is χαρακτήρ, transliterated as “charaktḗr” Now it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the similarity of this transliterated word to our English word “character”. This was an amazing find for me, for if I read this passage with this substitution, we get the following… He is the radiance of the glory of God and the character of his nature. He is the character of God’s nature. Wow – That helps me so much. In my mind there are numerous passages that speak of the absolute Deity of Jesus Christ, for which I am so thankful. This one passage, though strong on this topic based on my previous understanding, has now “landed” in my understanding. I get it – at least I get it better than before, and will be one of those passages that I will return to in discussions with saint or sinner. He is the Character – the Exact Imprint – of God’s nature! Think of that for a moment – the suffering Savior has revealed not only the heart of God, but His exact nature. May we praise Him for who He is! |
I would love to hear of your favorite name, characteristic or description of the Living God. Please leave me a comment, and I will include it in the list!
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